Court remands Maina in jail

The Federal High Court sitting in Abuja has ordered that former Chairman of Pension Reform Task Team (PRTT) Abdulrasheed Maina be remanded in prison custody.

Maina was arraigned in court for alleged fraud by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

EFCC spokesman Wilson Uwujaren in a statement said Maina was being prosecuted on a 12-count charge bordering on “money laundering, operating fictitious bank accounts and fraud.”

The court on Tuesday ordered the temporary forfeiture of 23 properties linked to Maina.

Nigeria’s Department of State Services (DSS) confirmed Maina’s arrest on October 2, about four years after he was declared wanted by the EFCC for an alleged N2.1 billion pension fraud

He was arrested in the company of his 20-year-old son at the Pennsylvania Avenue Hotel, Utako, Abuja after a request by the EFCC to the service to assist in the apprehension of the suspect.

DSS in a statement said Maina’s son Faisal tried to resist the arrest and pointed a pistol gun at the security operatives.

The former PRTT chairman was dismissed from Nigeria’s civil service in 2013 after the office of the Head of Service recommended his dismissal.

Maina was first charged alongside a former head of service Steve Oronsaye, Osarenkhoe Afe, Fredrick Hamilton and Global Services Ltd before a Federal High Court on a 24-count bordering on procurement fraud and obtaining by false pretence in July 2015 but he absconded from the country shortly after.